


The Spice of Life

by inichuinmylife



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-31
Updated: 2015-08-31
Packaged: 2018-04-18 07:39:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4697786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inichuinmylife/pseuds/inichuinmylife
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If someone likes you at your worst, then they'll love you at your best. At least, that's what he hopes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Spice of Life

“Geez, Kiku,” Yong-Soo shifted forward in his seat, gripping the steering wheel so hard that his knuckles turned white. “I can’t believe you. You are the biggest…” his friend waved his hand and gave up searching for the word. “Who has _that_ bad a reaction from eating a little bit of chilli?”

Kiku said nothing. He was slightly certain that if he opened his mouth, he would be sick. Again. For the eleventh time. And as much as it was Yong-Soo’s fault, the stupid bastard, Kiku did not think he would ever be forgiven if he threw up in Yong-Soo’s car. So, with a spiralling stomach and fraying nerves, he tried to ignore his Korean friend’s oh-so-witty remarks and focus on looking straight ahead (as much as he could when his sinus were swollen to three times their usual size), at the still and relatively stationary horizon, because the sight of too much motion was making his head spin.

Yong-Soo glanced at him and realised that he was not going to get a response. For a while, there was a blessed peace and quiet: no intrusive questions, no sarcastic comments on how he was the wimpiest wimp to have ever wimped away from eating chilli (sometimes it seemed like Yong-Soo had an expressive, if limited vocabulary) – but best of all, no noise. He knew that the distraction might help, but in all honesty it was too difficult to concentrate on replying and _not_ being sick all over Yong-Soo’s legs at the same time. It was better to just enjoy the silence while it lasted.

Which, knowing Yong-Soo, would not be very long.

They hit a red light.

_Three, two, one…_

Yong-Soo turned to study him again, saw the way in which sweat was making its cold way down his face and the deep red blotches around his eyes, and said, just as Kiku thought he might be lucky and that his friend might not say anything after all, “And it was only a little bit of chilli! I mean, c’mon Kiku, you gotta admit, it wasn’t even that much. Niran could eat that for breakfast. Times twenty. And _still_ not break a sweat.” He shifted forward again, supposedly to get a better look at him. Kiku pretended not to notice.

“Besides,” Yong-Soo shifted into gear and pulled away as the light turned green. “Even if it _was_ a little bit spicy – which it wasn’t – isn’t throwing up like thirty thousand times a _bit_ of an over-reaction?”

Kiku raised an eyebrow. Yong-Soo’s hypocrisy was astounding. He was not going to even bother dignifying it with a response.

“Still,” Kiku watched his Korean friend out of the corner of his swollen and puffy eyes. “Do I really _have_ to take you to the hospital? Couldn’t you, I don’t know, have got the bus or something? What if you, like, throw up in my car? _Gross._ Imagine that. We pull up at the hospital and you just _spew_ everywhere because you can’t handle a little bit of chilli – like Squirtle using Hydro Pump –“

He grimaced in distaste at Yong-Soo’s choice of diction and looked at him with a frown. “Why Squirtle?”

“Well,” Yong-Soo shrugged and turned on the indicator. “You’re tiny. Definitely not big enough to be Blastoise. Plus, y’know, it kind of puts into proportion the size of your body and the amount of _puke_ you’ve been _chucking up_ in the last ten min—“

“Yong-Soo-san.” His friend stopped at the half-queasy, half-frustrated tone in his voice. “Please. Just drive.”

* * *

The emergency clinic was a brightly lit, sterile area that made Kiku feel like his already-throbbing head was about to explode. It was not empty, but strangely quiet, and while it was rather different from his expectations of the rather overworked unit, at least it was not full of screaming children and nurses rushing everywhere while covered in copious amounts of various bodily fluids. Kiku breathed a sigh of relief. After a rather nauseous afternoon and the car ride with Yong-Soo, Kiku was not sure he could take much more in the way of graphic bodily expulsions.

But it was empty, somewhat, and Yong-Soo was out parking the car (“What do you mean, you didn’t bring any change?! _I_ have to pay for taking _you_ to the hospital?!”). Kiku was immensely fond of and certainly admired his friend (though he did not always show it), he was, right now, also eternally grateful that he was not there. The renewed peace and quiet was welcome.

A weary-looking nurse came out to greet him, and asked, somewhat offhandedly, what his problem was. She raised an eyebrow at his response – apparently repetitive vomiting and various swellings were not enough to warrant a trip to the emergency clinic, despite the fact that he had thrown up roughly ten times in just under twice as many minutes and hadn’t stopped shaking since.

He filled out a form and was waved into a small grey room with worn-out chairs and colourless posters on the walls. The nurse sniffed at him and told him that the doctor would be with him whenever he got round to it. Kiku thanked her, not because he felt she was sincere but because that was the polite thing to do. Privately, he felt embarrassed, almost ashamed. Maybe he _was_ over-reacting. Maybe, like the nurse had implied, it was just better for him to stay home and not cause trouble. But to leave now would just cause even more trouble, and besides, he really _did_ fell terrible.

The few people in the room looked up as he enters, including an old man who was wheezing violently, a middle-aged woman whose hand was swollen to the size of a small ball, and a foreigner whose lower arm was – in a word – _wrong._ The sensation of their eyes on him made him flush redder than he already was, and, in a small and practically useless attempt to pacify them that he knew was actually an attempt to render himself invisible, he bowed, mumbling a quiet and almost inaudible ‘excuse me’.

He hesitated and placed a hand on the chair next to the foreigner, purely because it was the seat nearest the door, and Kiku wanted to escape: “Excuse me. Is there anyone…?”

“Ah? Oh, no,” the foreigner – Chinese, maybe? He didn’t talk like Yong-Soo – moved his bag off the seat and moved over slightly. “Feel free.”

Kiku smiled, nervous. “Sorry.” Then he realised that he had apologised, and that while that would make sense to any other Japanese person, a foreigner might not quite understand it. _How embarrassing,_ he shut his eyes briefly and tried not to think about it.

But the foreigner spared him, replying in what was very good cultural diplomacy: “no worries.” He smiled again, and Kiku could not help but notice (in what was a very unseemly observation) that he was rather handsome. _What a thing to think, Kiku,_ he chided himself, _you’re in a hospital sweating rivers, trembling like you haven’t slept in six days, and this is what you’re thinking about? Get a grip._

Not that he really believed in love at first sight. That was a romantic notion from romantic storybooks, and he had lived long enough to know that life was neither of these things. But attraction did exist, and the man had bold features, including pleasantly kept if unusually long dark hair, and a slightly lopsided smile. Kiku could not have known this, but the man behind that clumsy grin was also preoccupied, with strikingly similar observations. There was a moment of silence between them, and then: “So, what are you in for?”

Kiku blinked in confusion. It was obvious that the other man was trying to make friendly conversation, but it sounded more like Kiku had just sat down opposite him in jail. “Oh,” the other man said after a second, “that didn’t quite sound the way I wanted it to. I mean, how come you’re here?”

In a horrible moment, Kiku realised what he must have looked like and the state he must have been in. _How embarrassing,_ he shifted slightly in his seat and looked down. How did he even begin to explain that he had had to come to the hospital because he had had a bad reaction to chilli, of all things? He risked a peek at the man and looked away again: he was being watched by unassuming eyes, as though the man was desperate to prove that he did not want to embarrass him. “It’s a long story,” he said finally, hoping that his was sufficient.

“We’ve got time,” the other man laughed in what was a very bad example of said cultural diplomacy. He nodded towards the rest of the patients to prove his point. Kiku noticed with a hot surge of dread that they did not look so pleased – well, they _were_ talking and violating one of Japan’s most sacred rules: that was, not making noise when there was no reason to do so.

Accordingly, Kiku lowered his voice to a whisper. “My friend,” he began to explain, wondering briefly where Yong-Soo was and why it was taking so long to park the car. “Well…” the shame rushed to his cheeks, and he stopped, but then realised that it did not matter as his cheeks were already a seemingly permanent red as a result of his misadventures with jalapeños (or whichever chilli it was; he had no desire to find out). “Ah… this is so embarrassing…”

Kiku stopped briefly; the doctor had walked in and called for a Fukuda-san. The woman with the hand like a tennis ball got up and left, everyone in the room watching her as she did so. Dimly, Kiku registered that he needed a drink – not that getting one was particularly wise; the last time he had had a glass of water it had come straight back up.

“You were saying,” the Chinese man was persistent, seemingly unaffected by any of the others around him. Kiku wondered if this was the result of a life abroad in a different culture, or simply personality. Or maybe it was both. “Your friend…?”

Weakly, Kiku offered him a small smile, and was more delighted than he should have been to have it returned. As yet another flush of heat prickled at his cheeks, he realised how inferior he was, sitting there covered in sweat, his stomach making strange and unpleasant noises, and his eyes and lips swollen and irritated. He was suddenly very conscious that his breath smelt bad.

“Don’t worry,” the man patted his shoulder consolingly. Kiku jumped at the contact, though it was a nice gesture, and the other man withdrew quickly, as though he had been burnt. A trace of disappointment crossed over him, like a lingering and unfair shadow over an otherwise bright pool. “Oh, sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you.”

Kiku tried to smile apologetically, though he was not so certain what it looked like, given that his lips looked like they had just come into unfriendly and unwarranted contact with several angry bumblebees – that was to say, probably more grotesque than anything. “It’s alright, I just…”

“No, it’s my fault. Anyway,” the foreigner nodded towards his own wonky arm and tried to shrug, wincing as he lifted the bad shoulder. “It can’t be as bad as this.”

That, while doubtful, was somewhat consoling, and Kiku realised that while some of the people waiting had legitimate problems, a good proportion of them, were, like him, suffering from their ailments as a result of equally embarrassing and unfortunate mishaps (not that these were any less legitimate). The thought was comforting, at the least. Encouraged by this, Kiku continued. “…My friend thought it would be funny to put some sort of really strong chilli in my food. And well…” He shrugged, much as the Chinese man had.

The foreigner laughed, and although it was a little discomforting, Kiku did not think he meant it unkindly. Instead, he seemed genuine, and even a little sympathetic. “Alright, yeah, that is bad. Sounds like something one of my idiot friends would do.”

Kiku tried to join him in his laughter, but it fell flat. The thought of Yong-Soo’s prank and the visibility of its effects was still all too pronounced.

“Hey,” he smiled again. Kiku felt strangely shy, and for once it was in a good way, as though he were hesitating before something good and kind. “Like I said, it’s not as bad as this.”

He looked down at the way the other man’s arm sat at an unbelievable angle from his elbow. “Ah… what happened? If you don’t mind my asking, that is, I mean – I wouldn’t want to pry…”

“Nah,” the man beamed and Kiku wondered if he ever stopped smiling. It reminded him a little of Yong-Soo. Not that this was a bad thing, by any means – it was endearing, actually; but it was also impressive, especially considering how much pain he must have been in. It did not come through in his words or tone of voice, but there were traces of discomfort around the edges of his chestnut-coloured eyes, and he was holding himself a lot more stiffly than looked comfortable. “It’s nothing. Just… you know.”

He paused, in much the same way that Kiku himself had, and Kiku realised that the seemingly unaffected and indifferent façade was just that. But the man was extending him a warm and sincere kindness, and he deserved the same in return. Kiku nodded at him, patiently, and eventually the man relaxed a bit, smiling softly, seemingly realising that he was redirecting his own kindness at him.

“Well,” the Chinese man laughed and ran his good hand through his slightly loose hair. “I was trying to, uh… well. I was trying to kill a mosquito.”

Kiku blinked. He was not completely sure he had heard correctly. “I’m… sorry? You were trying to… kill a mosquito?”

“Yeah,” he shrugged. “Crazy, right? I’m still not quite sure how it happened exactly.”

Kiku nodded, mostly in disbelief. Just how could someone dislocate an elbow trying to kill an insect that was barely the size of a fingernail? “I’m… amazed.”

He looked up to meet the other man’s eyes. For a second, it was easy to forget that they were both in equally as ridiculous and embarrassing situations, looking worn and tired. “Ah… nice to meet you. I’m Kiku Honda. Please think kindly of me in advance.”

They continued talking, and Kiku was both relieved and silently pleased to find that the conversation came quietly, but easily, and was not at all forced. It was refreshing, and for once, Kiku found himself actively enjoying the otherwise stressful activity of meeting new people. He learnt that Wang-san was a year his senior, came from Hangzhou, and lived not too far away from both himself and Yong-Soo.

Which was another thing – who took this long to park a car? Regardless of how nightmarish hospital car parks were, it had been nearly fifteen minutes. Kiku wondered if he had gone home. Either way, even if his only means of transport and one of his only friends had indeed abandoned him, at least he had not been sick again. In fact, he felt somewhat _less_ horrendous. The distraction had helped.

“I don’t really know,” Wang-san looked up at the opposite wall, trailing off halfway through his response to how he had become interested in Japan. “I just did, I guess. I know, it’s kind of unusual for Chinese people, but… hey, are you okay? You’re shaking. A lot.”

“Am I?” Kiku was surprised. He _felt_ moderately better, but only because he had not been sick again. Otherwise, he still felt tired, and beyond that, weak. Not that he could admit that to Wang-san, who, despite all his kindness, remained a stranger. “Ah… thank you for your concern, but I’m okay. Just a bit run down, probably.”

Wang-san seemed unconvinced. “I don’t know… Is your blood sugar low? You should eat something.”

“I probably shouldn’t,” he began, “after all, I…”

But Wang-san was already on his feet, and he stopped short. “I’m going to get some chocolate from the vending machine. Want some?”

“Oh, no, please, it’s fine,” he said, trying once again to force a smile. He hoped Wang-san would not press the issue. After all, how would he be able to admit to a stranger who had just bought him chocolate that he was, of all things, _lactose intolerant?_ “I’m alright, really…”

Wang-san frowned and looked him up and down. Kiku wondered what he looked like: short, skinny, pale as a ghost, shaking and swollen – Wang-san shook his head. “I’m going to get you some chocolate.” There was no room for argument. “Wouldn’t want you passing out.”

“Please, you don’t –“ But Wang-san was already on the other side of the room, putting the coins into the slot with his good hand. Kiku wanted to sink down and evaporate: someone with an injured arm was doing things for him, and in vain no less. A sense of drowning engulfed him.

“Here.” Wang-san almost pushed the chocolate into his hands. “Eat.”

Stupidly – because there was no other choice, and because he could not refuse now – Kiku took it, turning the bar over in his hands and wondering what to do. To not eat would be the same thing as turning Wang-san down, and therefore offending him; and yet to eat would be shooting himself in the foot, so to speak, because it was full of the _one_ substance on earth that he just so happened to be allergic to.

Wang-san did not move. “Is there something wrong?”

He hesitated. He knew he ought to just explain – Wang-san would not mind, this he was fairly certain of; he was laid-back, considerate, and down-to-earth, but he just could not. And the other patients were beginning to look at them too, frowning at their inability to not stand out. “You okay?” Wang-san was starting to look concerned.

“Ah, no, I’m fine…” he forced a smile and hurriedly started to unwrap the chocolate.

“Good.” Wang-san, finally satisfied, sat down.

In an attempt to redeem himself (and partly in the hopes that he did not have to eat it all), Kiku broke off some of the chocolate and offered it to him. “Please. I really couldn’t take advantage of your kindness like this… I really would repay you if I could, but I don’t have my wallet. I asked my friend to bring me here, and…”

The Chinese man laughed good-naturedly. “Nah. I wanted to do it. Go ahead.”

Kiku breathed out steadily and looked down at the chocolate in its wrapper. It smelt sweet, inviting, and he had no choice. Then again, maybe it would be okay – he could usually handle a little bit of milk before he got sick. Alternatively, maybe he would just experience a bit of discomfort. Stomach cramps, even, which he could pass off as yet another side-effect of the chilli, or just general queasiness. If he was really lucky, nothing would happen at all.

Somehow, Kiku doubted it.

He ate the chocolate.

* * *

Five minutes later, Kiku found himself throwing up just as violently as before in the reception toilets. The only thoughts that managed to pass through his mind between heave after agonising heave was that this was bordering on painful, and that it had more than exceeded humiliating. Tears bit at his eyes as he tried to breathe. His throat was burning.

When his stomach finally settled down, Kiku made his worn and weary way back to the sitting room. Yong-Soo was there, surprisingly, sitting next to Wang-san. Kiku was not so sure why he was disappointed by this. Both of them looked up on his return.

“Keeks! There you are.” The entire clinic looked up. Kiku felt the sickening need to throw up again. “Where have you been?”

“Keeks?” Wang-san looked from Yong-Soo to him. Kiku tried not to respond. He hated the nickname. Yong-Soo did not.

“Please don’t call me that…” He took the seat next to Yong-Soo, bending forward and hugging close to his knees to try and stop his stomach hurting.

Yong-Soo patted his back in what was a potentially sarcastic, potentially genuine gesture of comfort. “You okay?”

He nodded because he did not want to open his mouth. It was like the car ride all over again. In fact, it was perhaps a miracle that Yong-Soo had not said more to embarrass him yet.

“You know, you stink like puke,” Yong-Soo informed him cheerfully. Kiku held back a sigh. He had apparently acquired the wonderful habit of speaking too soon. He knew his friend was rarely serious, and that all the teasing and jokes were meant purely out of affection, but he did wish that Yong-Soo would recognise when to stop, too.

Wang-san spoke up. “He can’t help it. Don’t make him feel worse.”

“Well, he should have just _told_ you that he was lactose intolerant –” Kiku only just managed to prevent himself putting his head in his hands. All he had wanted to do was save face for both himself and Wang-san.

The Chinese man turned red. “I didn’t know about that!”

“Ah, _hyung,_ it’s no big deal, he’ll live.”

“ _Hyung?”_ Kiku looked from Yong-Soo to Wang-san and back again. “You two know each other?”

Wang-san raised his eyebrows. “Remember when I said that putting chilli in someone’s food sounded like something one of my friends would do? _Well.”_

 _Well, indeed._ Kiku was not quite sure why he found this so surprising – unlike him, Yong-Soo was an extrovert, and had no trouble mixing with a group of people and making friends. Even _he_ had opened up to the amicable if sometimes infuriating Korean. And more than that, Yong-Soo was the kind of person who attracted other people, who people wanted to get to know. He was not certain, but thought that Wang-san might have been the same. That was to say, entirely out of his league.

“Honda-san,” the doctor called his name and he breathed a small sigh of relief. Yong-Soo gave him a small thumbs up and an encouraging smile, and, a little bit comforted, Kiku smiled back. At the end of the day, he didn’t, and never could hate Yong-Soo. His friend grinned even more widely.

Wang-san smiled as well.

Kiku blushed, and walked into the door frame.

“He’s got the hots for you,” Yong-Soo said to Yao under his breath.

“Shut up,” Yao grumbled, jabbing him in the ribs with his good elbow. Yong-Soo just chuckled.

* * *

Kiku was surprised to find that he would be kept in overnight. The doctor, a tired-looking man with grey stubble around his chin sighed as he sat down after examining him. “You’re dehydrated,” he said, talking to his computer rather than to him, “and I’m not surprised you’re in pain given how much you’ve been sick. Take this to reception and you’ll be checked into a ward.”

He bowed to the doctor and made his way back into the waiting room. Wang-san was not there, presumably busy seeing another doctor. Yong-Soo, however, stood to greet him, a grin of sheepish concern on his face. “Keeks. You okay? What’d they say?”

“They’re keeping me in, that’s all.”

Yong-Soo’s face fell. “It’s that bad?”

Kiku looked at him, curious. He seemed nervous, guilty, even, as though he had not expected such bad consequences. “It’s alright,” he said, softly, and Yong-Soo seemed to soften. “It’s just because I’m a bit dehydrated. I’ll be fine.”

Yong-Soo shifted from foot to foot. “Yeah, but…”

“I’m fine,” he repeated. “Please don’t worry.”

Kiku watched him carefully. He seemed unconvinced, and sullen, too, seemingly still concerned about his own part in the whole affair. “Though,” he continued, “if I’m going to stay in overnight, I’ll need to pay. Do you think you could drop my wallet off some time?”

The light seemed to return to Yong-Soo’s eyes, and his friend smiled: “Sure! I’ll bring it round tomorrow. Just let me know when you’re being let out, and I’ll come and pick you up, okay?”

“I’m sorry to trouble you so much,” Kiku replied, even though he had only decided to be troubling so that he could be in Yong-Soo’s debt, and thus, make him feel like he was redeeming himself despite it all.

“Like you’re trouble,” Yong-Soo rolled his eyes. “If anything, _I’m_ the one who caused trouble for you. So make sure to rest well, okay?”

He nodded, half in understanding and half in thanks. Apparently Yong-Soo _did_ know when to stop. Either that or Wang-san had talked to him earlier. _No,_ Kiku stopped himself, feeling a little bad; Yong-Soo wasn’t a bad person by any means, and despite his occasional pranks and sometimes overly loud lifestyle, he was always thoughtful, and someone to be admired, too.

The nurse coughed quietly to interrupt. “Honda Kiku-sama? This way, please.”

They said their goodbyes and he was directed to a small, quiet room far away from the relative hustle and bustle of the waiting room proper. The nurse informed him that they would give him an IV when he was ready, and that he needed to at least try to drink some water when he felt he could.

It was only then, lying on the bed with the needle in his arm, that Kiku realised just how tired he was: his stomach was still somersaulting, his heart and head were still pounding, but beyond all else, he felt spent, weak.

He dimly registered what the nurse was saying about visiting hours and hospital meals, and then, finally, fell asleep.

* * *

“Shh,” Kiku stirred under the covers, vaguely aware that someone was talking nearby. “Wouldn’t want to wake the sleeping princess now, would we?”

With a mixture of delight and exasperation, Kiku realised that it was Yong-Soo, who was up to his usual teasing once again. He vaguely considered extracting his arm from the mess of covers and making a rude gesture at him, but he did not know who Yong-Soo was talking to and how formal he ought to be around them. The thought, however, remained tempting.

Instead, he forced himself to sit up. “Oh, hey,” Yong-Soo greeted him with a smile. “The princess awakes.”

“Shut up, Soo-san.” Strangely, he was not at all surprised to find that these were the first words out his mouth when seeing his friend again.

“You wound me,” Yong-Soo feigned hurt. “I go out of my way to come and collected you and that’s all you have to say to me? Besides, I even brought someone to come and see you. See?”

He reached behind the curtain and pulled Wang-san into view. He was just as handsome as Kiku remembered him, which was certainly nice even if it was a little embarrassing, and now that he was standing, Kiku could see that he was quite tall, and somewhat wiry. His arm was in a sling, and he seemed to be trying to keep it very still. Kiku wondered if it still hurt.

But more than that, more than the unexpectedness of it, Wang-san had seen him being so rude, too. Hardly good for his image. But then again, he did not really seem to have noticed, and was more caught up in telling Yong-Soo off. It was only when their mutual friend started to laugh that he stopped, met Kiku’s eyes, and turned red himself. “Hi.”

“Wang-san,” he fumbled with the pronunciation and subconsciously drew the covers up some more. “I didn’t expect you to see here.”

“Well,” he said, grinning sheepishly and running a hand through his hair again, “I didn’t want you to have to put up with _this_ colossal idiot when you’d just been let out of hospital.”

Kiku was touched. Not that he thought Yong-Soo would have been too annoying (Kiku had leverage, after all), but the extra company was very nice nonetheless.

“ _Hyung,_ just because he’s the size of an unfortunately growth-stunted flea doesn’t mean that I’m a colossus,” Yong-Soo interjected before Kiku could thank him. “I’m perfectly normal, thank you very much. It’s you two who are the tiny ones.”

Wang-san raised an eyebrow. “I dislocated my arm murdering a mosquito,” he said calmly, “don’t think I won’t do the same to you.”

“You said you didn’t even kill it,” Wang-san turned a dark shade of red that probably matched Kiku himself after the unfortunate chilli incident.

“Shut up,” Wang-san muttered, “at least not in front of Honda-san.”

Yong-Soo grinned, and Wang-san’s face fell. Somehow, Kiku felt like he was watching a play. “Oh, but _hyung,”_ Yong-Soo’s smile only widened. “Don’t you think poor, sweet, little, innocent Kiku deserves to know how good – or bad – you are at protecting him before you corrupt him?”

Wang-san gritted his teeth. “You utter _bastard.”_

Kiku tried not to laugh. This was the thing: as infuriating as Yong-Soo was, he _was_ funny, and playful, and never quite serious enough. But Wang-san looked embarrassed, and Kiku felt bad for him, because it seemed like these were things that had apparently hit home. “Anyone who can kill cockroaches is good enough for me,” he said, partly truthfully.

“Do you feel better?” Wang-san asked, backed up almost immediately by questions from Yong-Soo. He assured them that yes, he did feel better – he could actually feel his face and tongue again, and his stomach had finally stopped grumbling, even if he was incredibly hungry.

One of them was about to reply when the nurse drew open the curtains and made herself noticed. “Yes,” she said, disconnecting various equipment and wires from the machines, “you’re good to go.”

The car ride home was not quiet by any means, but the atmosphere was friendly and nowhere near as tense as Kiku had imagined it would be. Yong-Soo dropped him off first – “still don’t want to risk you puking all over the car” – and Kiku watched them go, waving before retreating into his apartment.

In the car, Yong-Soo and Yao exchanged glances.

The peace lasted for a whole five seconds.

“Yao and Kiku, sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n—”

“Shut _up_ , Soo.”

**Author's Note:**

> I love Soo so much. Sorry if I came across as a bit unfair to him here. Kiku doesn’t always think bad things of him.  
> If you enjoyed this, please let me know! I feel like my writing style has become a bit… diluted recently. A bit boring, maybe? So I’m going to try and go back to the more decorative kind of style if I can.


End file.
